I woke up feeling better today, and it's the first day since my last treatment that I haven't taken any anti-nausea drugs. Hooray! And Barry got my prescription for Emend for my next chemo - three pills, that's all. I take one an hour before chemo, then one each of the next two mornings thereafter. So glad that I have another line of defense against nausea!
Although I dislike chemo, there are some good things about it. One of those is my new chemo friend, Jenni, and she's 63 years old and on pretty much the same track of chemo and radiation as me, but she's just finished treatment #2. She is HER-2 Neu positive so she's getting Herceptin each week in addition to her Taxol, and after radiation, she'll get nearly a year of weekly infusions of Herceptin.
When we were both in for our bloodwork yesterday, we were visiting about side effects out in the waiting room before our names were called, and Jenni leaned over and asked me if there was a point at which they would do some sort of test to determine if what they were doing with chemo was killing any remaining cancer cells like it was supposed to be doing. I knew she had had surgery just as I had, and I mentioned that I had had a PET scan that showed me free from any other cancer in my body, and she said she'd had the same test with the same results. Then I told her that what we were getting with our cancer treatments was the standard protocol for our type of breast cancer, and that they didn't REALLY know that each each every little cell (if any rogue cells existed) was being hit by chemo. However, I reminded her that Taxol kills rapidly dividing cells and that cancer fit that category, and I told her the drugs I was getting right now, Cytoxan and Adriamycin (which she will get soon), attack the DNA of cancer. As I was trying to make her feel better about where she was in the journey, I realized at the same time how far cancer research and treatment have come over the years and yet how little doctors do know as to why it recurs in some people and not in others.
Do those who stay cancer free eat some sort of magical combination of foods or do they get just the right amount of sun? Do they stay away from chemicals better than other folks or do they just pray harder? I don't have the answers, but I'm hopeful that everything I'm doing and that Jenni is doing isn't for naught. We're banking our lives on it.
Barry says I talk too much during my chemo and that I probably disturb some of the sleeping chemo patients. Well maybe I do talk too much, but they shouldn't give me steroids if they want me to be quiet. I like to think that I keep things a bit more lively when I'm there, and this past time I had everyone talking about pork roasts when I left. There was a lively discussion about how the folks in Texas seem to prefer beef brisket, how Arkansans like BBQ pork butts (and sandwiches WITH slaw), and how folks in Louisiana like their sandwichs sans slaw. Those participating in the conversation were me, a WWII vet (his hat says he is), Jenni, a biker dude (really skinny fellow but full of stories once you get him started), and a couple other folks who chimed in occasionally. Just because people have cancer doesn't mean they are out of commission--these folks were full of ideas, and I almost didn't want to leave because I was afraid I'd miss something. I think I may have to cook a pork roast this weekend and report back to them in a couple of weeks.
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